ISRAEL “A Pest” That Destroys Land and People of Palestine

WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip — About 185 yards from the fence that separates Gaza from Israel, 300 rows of green chili pepper plants are sprouting on farmland that lay barren for years.

Ziad Abu Ettewi, 42, said he planted the peppers, and some parsley, on his seven-acre plot after the November cease-fire agreement between Israel and Gaza, which promised farmers increased access to the area close to the fence that had long been off-limits. But Mr. Ettewi is worried that the Israeli military might level the plants or shoot at the 10 workers he will need to harvest them next month.

“I’m afraid of having them bulldozed since the first day I planted them,” he said as he walked along his fields here in a village southeast of Gaza City. “We do not know if the tanks will enter here today or tomorrow. Uncertainty is the biggest problem we face.”

Six months after the cease-fire ended eight days of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Mr. Ettewi and other Palestinian farmers, as well as human rights groups that work with them, say there is much confusion about what is permissible in the so-called buffer zone along Gaza’s eastern border, and that plantings remain few.

A ride on the outskirts of eastern Gaza last week showed mostly abandoned, uncultivated land stretching about 400 yards from the fence. The bumpy hills are dotted with destroyed wells and faint traces of long-ago incursions by Israeli tanks. Here and there, some farmers have planted rain-fed peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, parsley and potatoes.